Make Believe Melodies For February 16, 2026
Future Sounds, Exciting Now
heykazma — 15
The thrill of encountering an artist on the outset of their creative journey is the eagerness they often have to play around. Teenage electronic creator heykazma lets this giddiness coarse through debut EP 15, a floor-ready discombobulation tapping into footwork, techno, drum ‘n’ bass, the Kojima pet store chain feline section and experimentation to offer a set of tracks painting an exciting picture of the future…but plenty exhilarating in the now.
What heykazma loves to do across 15 is lay down a groove and see how to warp its corners into something alien. The opening title cut in more conservative hands could be just a fun bit of rumbling funk, but as “15” unfolds it takes on a surreal edge with heykazma themselves repeating phrases that fluctuate in pitch to give it a hallucinogenic glow, as the sounds themselves transform into juke-like snippets that go cosmic as a synthesizer enters. “Pariiiiiiiiiiiiiiin” heads in an icier direction, its huge thumps feeling cavernous as heykazma lets details scurry about in the back, while “Cat Power” adds samples of mewing alongside their own warped voice (how very “Kitten’s Breaks” of them). Closer “Acid Noise” is an instance of pure rejection of form, closer to noise (with breaks and vocal snippets) weaved in to something that feels like a joyful destruction of form. There’s also a slide whistle, I think, or maybe an ambulance.
It’s a blast, and exists in the same post-Hakushi-Hasegawa landscape as Fuki Kitamura and Misaki Umei (who heykazma appears to be friends with) in terms of creating a new generation of topsy-turvy sounds restrained by nothing except the creator’s own imagination. I’m excited to see where it goes, but also savor this moment of youthful expression at its fullest. Get it here, or listen above.
Aiobahn +81 — eau de parfum 〜extended play〜
I’ve recently been asked to reflect on the first five years of the 2020s in Japanese music (stay tuned!) and this exercise got me thinking about how I define this half-decade period. My biggest takeaway…which shouldn’t be a shocker to anyone who reads to blog…is how the walls between the online and IRL have collapsed when it comes to the best of the country’s music, and how all kinds of zany combinations are possible.
This EP from Aiobahn +81 captures that dynamic perfectly. The heavy presence of Kasane Teto should give that away, but it also includes team-ups with other extremely online producers, including a head-spinning reference-heavy collab with collective Explores of the Internet which Ryo Miyauchi correctly compared this to PAS TASTA over at scrmbl. And then Mori Calliope shows up? An absolute joy of a listen doubling as a celebration of the whiplash that is Japanese culture in the 2020s. Listen above.
Nogami Tsushin — “Kesenai Girl”
Memories of youth haunt Nogami Tsushin on the fuzzed-out jog of “Kesenai Girl.” While the lyrics touch on longing for the girls of his high school days, the bedroom chug here is really zeroing in on adolescence proper, longing for simplicity even as it corrodes away with age. That Tsushin can convey all of this in a buzzy rock number bordering on a daydream is remarkable. Listen above.
ex. happyender girl — lovers, and fundamental
A peak behind the curtain…I write the music portion of this round-up mail after Oricon Trail and the “News And Views” bit, so sometimes funny accidents happen. Scroll down to see me gnashing my teeth at X goobers claiming Vocaloid as “weeb music” hinting towards stunted taste — maybe they need to listen to more ex. happyender girl. The latest transmission from the Hatsune-Miku-utilizing artist is an abrasive set that feels like a memory dissolving, pleasent melodies being twisted into something rough by fuzz and synth buzzsaws. Like the best Vocaloid music, it creates surprising tension between the digi-signing and the sounds. Get it here, or listen above.
Chara + YUKI — “Senaka Ni Ribbon”
The long-running partnershipo between Chara and YUKI carries on with an easy-breezy number celebrating the thrill of love. “Senaka Ni Ribbon” does what every song in this collaborative story does well, which is allow both vocalists a chance to showcase their strengths (YUKI something more bombastic, Chara something more intimate) and play around in that confine. Listen above.
Litty — “Stack”
A flex hiding a lot of pain. While Litty gains momentum in the Japanese rap sphere, she uses “Stack” as a way to let go of the downer moments that shaped her, with vague nods to turning negatives into positives and more specific referrals to outright betrayal. Here’s a way for her to synthesize that all as she makes her climb up. Listen above.
Tim Pepperoni — Beautiful Losers
Perhaps I’m still embarassed about how I missed a whole-zooted-ass album from him a couple years ago, but I really do think Tim Pepperoni is one of the best rappers in Japan today. The Beautfiul Losers release touches on why I think this way — it’s partially a concept EP of songs referencing classic rock bands (“ROLLING STONES,” “GRATEFUL DEAD”) but totally a snapshot of being young and woozy and trying to navigate modern Japan. Listen above.
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Oricon Trail For The Week Of Feb. 2, 2026 To Feb. 8, 2026
Back in the day, the Oricon Music Charts were the go-to path to music stardom in Japan. Acts of all sorts traversed these lands, trying to sell as many CDs as possible in order to land a good ranking on a chart choosing to only count physical sales, even as the Internet came to be and the number of versions offered for sale got ridiculous. Today, with the country finally in on digital, these roads are more barren and only looked at by the most fanatic of supporters needing something to celebrate. Yet every week, a new song sells enough plastic to take the top spot. So let’s take a trip down…the Oricon Trail.
LE SSERAFIM Featuring j-hope — “Spaghetti” (11,381 Copies Sold)
I can only assume there’s some kind of final winter snap spreading across the world, as that would explain why so many people stayed inside and logged in to X to freak out about Asian pop music in the past week. Almost concurrently, both international J-pop and K-pop communities on the everything app experienced something akin to an existential crisis. For the prior, it was a familiar collapse — did you know some fans of Japanese pop culture only listen to J-pop, “anime music” and Vocaloid1??? Those…those…those weebs! It’s a conversation had a billion times that never does anything and always just ends up as a way for people to boast about their much deeper knowledge of Japanese music…which leads to some suggestions screaming “citation needed.”
I imagine the conversation on the K-pop side is just as exhausting for anyone who has been following that industry for more than a year. In a telling snapshot of where both international communities stand, the J-pop conversation was one of gatekeeping, the K-pop one was of outside recognition. It all started when Rolling Stone Korea named LE SSERAFIM’s “Spaghetti” as its song of the year.
Rather than stopping to ponder “huh, maybe their Rolling Stone is as bad as the main Rolling Stone,” people flipped out, with the goofiest accounts in the world using it as an excuse to talk about peak capitalism and actual K-pop fans to become extremely weird. A sea of suggestions being like “no no this is the good K-pop!” flooded in and…citation needed once again, but the vibe of it all was one of desperation as those not following Korean pop music lashed out at it and, rather than just shrug and move on, fans needed to create an entire digital court case in its defense. There’s also a whole related thing about how lame the Grammy nominated K-pop songs were…despite being out for 14 months, now everyone decided “APT.” wasn’t good alright?…but woooo boy that’s a rabbit hole too far.
It’s so funny that “Spaghetti” started all of this. I don’t like this song personally, but it’s also not cataclysmically terrible enough to spur anything like it did online — there’s way worse K-pop out there, and a lot of it has been crowned similarly. I ultimately don’t dig in because it neither plays to LE SSERAFIM’s dance-pop strengths, nor does it do anything that strange compared to much better detours from their past (complete with similarly goofy lyrics, but which hit much better here). I also can’t digest j-hope’s entire thing or the HYBE synergy sprinkled over it. Song of the year? I’d say no, but Rolling Stone has called much stupider stuff this before.
ANYWAY, I have no idea if this helped propel “Spaghetti” the single originally released in the fall of 2025 where it didn’t sniff Oricon’s number-one spot into that space this past week with an insanely low 11,381 copies sold, but that was enough for it to ride the zeitgeist.
It also gives us 2026’s first case of an Oricon-topping single being totally absent from the combined charts, the ones that actually factor in things like “the internet” and “how many people listen to music today.” In that corner, its Kenshi Yonezu, Mrs. GREEN APPLE, multiple HANA songs and more.
I should note here that the real reason “Spaghetti” got served that high was because the single that normally would CRUSH this space — Snow Man’s “Stars” — is a digital-only release as of writing, meaning it isn’t eligible for the Oricon chart this feature focuses on…and funny enough because it doesn’t have extra physical sales juicing it, it falls short on the combined chart to “IRIS OUT.” An absolutely dizzying set of circumstances where the STARTO group is maybe the most internet-forward player? Listen above…errrr, below too.
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News And Views
Hello! Project is officially on streaming…except Coconuts Musume, which invalidates the whole thing, sorry.
The next president of and chief executive officer of Sony Music Entertainment Japan will be Atsuhiro Iwakami, coming from…Aniplex. That underlines the close relationship between the mediums (see griping above).
A new livehouse with a capacity of 1600 people will open near Shin-Osaka Station in the spring of 2028.
Vaundy wrapped up his Tokyo Dome shows this weekend with the announcement of an Asia Tour for later this year. Many online called this more of an “East Asia tour” which fair enough, though I’m personally struck by the calling of a shot that Shanghai will be back on the live circuit for him come the fall…rolling the dice on diplomatic relations.
I talked to the two college-aged kids behind Login.jp for The Japan Times.
Charmed to encounter a lumber-industry website called Wood Central, even further wowed by a story about a Japanese company turning quake-salvaged wood into instruments.
Elizabeth Beattie looks at a new music platform geared towards bedroom artists called VoiSona for The Japan Times.
Slate has an article about listening bars in the United States…more “cool, Japan!” developments playing out.
Did Hikaru Utada help kill Charlie Kirk? Well, one nutjob on the internet at least thinks so…
小澤身季子@mikiko_ozawa@UtadaCharts @utadahikaru @victoriabeckham This is Utada Hikaru's true nature. Not all of the information that has been made public is true. The more important the information, the more false it is. By the way, Utada Hikaru is heavily involved in the Charlie Kirk murder case, and she will likely be arrested soon. Don't
小澤身季子 @mikiko_ozawa⛓️ 宇多田ヒカル(1983)相関図 ⛓️ 元旦那 紀里谷和明(1968)の父親 ・山口組 司忍こと篠田建市(1942) 元旦那 紀里谷和明との間の娘 ・森七菜(2001) 元旦那 ﾌﾗﾝﾁｪｽｺ•ｶﾘｱｰﾉ(1991)の父親 ・ビルゲイツ(1955)8:36 AM · Jan 23, 2026 · 1.11M Views54 Replies · 124 Reposts · 643 Likes
Written by Patrick St. Michel (patrickstmichel@gmail.com)
Twitter — @mbmelodies
Check out the Best Of 2026 Spotify Playlist here!
Dropping the bit for a second….this is a new development, right? It used to just be “anime artists,” an ill-defined concept when actually thinking about music but hey easy to understand, it is an artist who makes music for anime, which is of course nerdy and filthy and would never be embraced by Olympic gold medalists or anything. But like…Vocaloid is its own world separate from anime, I don’t think I’ve ever seen it dragged into conversations about “the bad kind of J-pop listener” until now, as before Hatsune Miku was just lumped in with every other Japanese cartoon. Yet now it’s another way to feel superior to those technically in the same group as you, which is a shift.